


Turning Out

by Wilde_world



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mental Health, F/M, I bet Leia's hugs would be the best in the whole universe, Rey is a therapist, Rey needs like a four-hour-long hug, but like From Leia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 12:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16118357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wilde_world/pseuds/Wilde_world
Summary: Ever since she woke up, Rey feels those eyes on her. If only Ben were there.As Michael Scott would say, "If I can get them depressed then I'll have done my job."





	Turning Out

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to my second fic. My tumblr is @wilde-world. My lovely, lovely beta @howsolocanyougo is, to paraphrase (lol), lovely. If you like this, then it's entirely because of her. Thank you also to @eyesofemeraldgreen for being amazing and endlessly supportive.

          She knew the signs, had studied and worked with them every day, but she still hadn’t recognized them in herself until they’d settled around her like a thick veil of smoke. They cut off her air, caused the world around her to blur; in her fight, reality had slipped away, unnotice.

          She adjusted her glasses to rub at her eyes; she continued to keep her head down, trying to ignore the eyes whose gazes burned her from all sides. She finished her note and looked up to her patient, fully expecting to see those eyes set on her, but only found the sullen expression of—she glanced at her notes to find ‘Samuel’ written in block letters ( _when had she done that?)_ —Samuel, conflict raging in his eyes.

          She understood he had an abusive childhood, and her heart fluttered away from her chest, once again attaching itself to the man across from her. She waited with bated breath for the hour to strike and watch that part of herself shatter to pieces once he left (he hadn’t given any indication that he might return for another session).

The hour struck, and Samuel left.

          Rey stood up, collecting herself as she slipped off her cream heels and walked to the small kitchenette in her office to grab some caf. Returning to her chair, she looked over her notes for a total of three seconds before she felt that set of eyes on her again, now from her window. She looked up, but nothing was there; she looked down. Those eyes--so grotesque and round-- were on her again, so she looked again, but nothing was there. Tears started to prick at her eyes.

          “Please stop,” she whispered, closing her eyes as a tear slipped down her cheek. She felt like she was suffocating, like her lungs were collapsing. She was sure if she tried to stand her knees would buckle in an instant. It was all too much. Too much. Her head started to ache, so she dropped her caf and cradled her head.

“Please stop. Please stop. Please stop,” her sobs muffled her words.

\--

_“We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you want to stop to feel the rain?” Ben asked, disbelief etching across his features._

Rey giggled, nodding her head as she leaned against the passenger side door to open it. She stuck her hand out to feel the drops, each one soaking her skin, pressing their cold  
  
all the way to her bones.

_“What are you afraid of?” she asked, nodding towards his own door in a challenge._

_He gave her a complex look, opened his door and walked around the car until he stood in front of her, all the while maintaining her gaze._

_“You know, a lot of things,” he told her in honestly. "I can't think of an example at present, though," his eyes were those of total adoration, warm and brown and unlike anything else. He cupped her face in his hands, pressing a kiss to her nose, her forehead, each of her eyelids, her cheeks, her mouth. He drew back, meeting her half-lidded gaze tenderly. He drew in a shaky breath and whispered, “Marry me?”  
_

_A bright smile spread across her face, and she pulled him in for a kiss. “Yes.”_

_-_

_She held his hand almost halfway to Han and Leia’s, before he jerked it away from hers in a desperate attempt to regain control of the steering._

_She woke up to the steady beat of her heart monitor, and he was gone. Ben had died instantly, they said._

_\--_

         She felt those eyes all over her--so round, with eggshell whites and an ink-dripping of black surrounded by yellow--since he left. They plagued her dreams and glued themselves to her in the daytime. A fresh wave of tears threatened to surface, so she let them. There was nothing but surrender in her mind; she would do anything to make it end faster, make that crushing weight on her chest disappear. Her breathing quickened; she was completely terrified by the eyes that drifted all around her, mocking her more and more until she couldn't stand it. 

          She hadn’t noticed Mara come in until she felt a pair of hands gripping her shoulders, and a voice like silk wrapping around her, asking the question she’d been so afraid to hear.

...  
  
“What are you afraid of?”

* * *

 


End file.
